Law Practice Management-- How To Determine Your Charges

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Law Practice Management-- How To Determine Your Charges

Determining charges is a challenging law practice management job for the majority of attorneys when thinking through their law firm marketing strategies. In identifying fees for particular services, attorneys frequently fall short of what they must charge. Too many lawyers are scared of even charging the competitive price for their services when making their law firm marketing plans.

Before you sit down and begin believing through your law practice management prices technique you require some differences around rates frequently utilized in law company marketing planning. Do know a law practice management law firm marketing plan is not efficient if you only draw in individuals who desire to pay the lowest fee for a service. Instead, you desire to focus your law practice management and law company marketing strategies on bring in customers who will end up being long term assets to the firm.

There are basically four ways of determining how much you ought to be charging for your services. Lets move right into those now.

The Market Method In Law Practice Management Prices

This is one great way of identifying prices. Get your assistant to support you in this law practice management job and spend a long time finding what the variety of rates is in the neighborhood. Have her do a "mystery buyer" study by calling around as if he/she were a possible client and discover out what your competitors state on the phone to her around pricing. She may need to call from her house phone to prevent caller ID. As another alternative you might have him/her call other assistants or paralegals at your competitors and offer to exchange your charges for their fees or you could do that with other lawyers yourself in your market. If you really wish to get into it and have optimal information you can compose perhaps a few dozen rivals in your market and say you are doing a cost study and if they would send you their cost list you will create a composite list that does not identify those responding and send them a copy of the results. To keep it easy for them consist of a stamped, self-addressed envelope with a list of the most common services provided in your practice location. Now you will see what people are charging for services comparable to those you offer. You ought to be able to create a series of costs. Utilize this variety to set costs for your own services. My recommendation in law office marketing planning is to charge at the 75% level of the list. You need to be at or in the leading 25% of the costs.

Remember that in general it is not a good law practice management technique to contend on price. The majority of potential clients will see prices that is too low as a signal that there is something missing out on either from the service, the company, or the firm.

The Cost Approach in Law Practice Management Pricing

This law practice management pricing technique is really simple truly. The most common mistake in law practice management utilizing this approach is to neglect to consist of some form of your cost.

OK, let me state it again. In law practice management typically you count yourself out of the expenditures and you ought to include yourself in the costs. Why? Frequently you are doing a minimum of a few of the technical work. Yes? Often you are doing a minimum of some of the management work. Yes? As the owner of business you are due a sensible earnings. Yes? If you are all 3 of these in one, you must think about one income as due you for your time and knowledge as the service technician moved here and supervisor in addition to a earnings of fifteen to thirty percent due you as the owner. Be sure to include a sensible expense for your managerial and technical work in the expenses part of this formula. next page

Fixed Rate Technique in Law Practice Management Prices

This is the method used by many vehicle mechanics (it is called "the flat rate book") and other service companies. This approach is where you figure out a fixed rate for numerous jobs and charge that rate no matter what. He makes more if the mechanic spends less time than set aside for the task. He makes less if he spends more time than allotted. In the end, it all evens out (well, normally to the mechanics' favor if you ask me). Another example utilizing this approach is how handled healthcare has actually utilized this system with hospitals and physicians . If they desire, attorneys can utilize this system.

The "Rule of 3" in Law Practice Management Rates

This " guideline of thumb" called the "rule of 3" used in law practice management is not what your Certified Public Accountant might inform you and it does not fail you either. For the very first 3rd we will take the overall amount of salaries/bonuses (not benefits simply salaries-- advantages go into the 2nd 3rd coming next) for the revenue generators and/or timekeepers (this includes you if you are producing revenue) and call that our very first third. What you need to do is take the total quantity (in this example $300,000) and now figure out how much you need to charge per billable hour, per fixed rate or how numerous contingency cost cases won to be sure you hit the target we need to hit provided our very first third number times 3 (in this example $300,000).

This method reveals you just how much per hour you require to charge. Considering that you know the number of billable hours each revenue generator can do monthly, simply divide that into your total of all thirds ($300,000) to see what you require to charge per billable hour to make your numbers come out correctly. As long as you hit your targets you will be guaranteed of a 15% to 30% net make money from your operations. If you are the owner of the practice you should have a reasonable earnings as well do not you agree? This approach is called the Guideline of Three. If this method is a bit too complicated do feel complimentary to contact me and I will help you sort it out in a couple of minutes on the phone.

It is a good concept to believe through all of these prices methods in identifying your law practice management pricing strategy prior to setting a price and moving ahead with a law company marketing plan to guarantee you are thoroughly exploring all choices. In another post I will tell you how to speak to possible clients so you never ever have a issue getting the fee you are worthy of.